The Digital Fix: Music

Various - England - The Album

With Euro 2004 just around the corner, Virgin release England - The Album, and, in an attempt to appeal to as many supporters as possible, the track-listing is nicely varied.

There are the obvious football anthems, from the relatively bearable (Three Lions) to... well Ant And Dec doing We're On The Ball. Then there are those included for the sentiment; the compilation begins with We Are The Champions and ends, amusingly, with Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. You'll also find comedy (Meat Pie, Sausage Roll), opera (Nessun Dorma), chest-beating nationalism (Land Of Hope And Glory), The Farm's baggy classic All Together Now, Oasis riotously covering Slade's Cum On Feel The Noize and (more) terrible cod-reggae courtesy of UB40.

It's all very suited to a laddish sing-a-long, so expect to hear this played in many a pub over the next month. With the beer flowing, it will hardly matter that the quality varies as much as the style, but with some of the inclusions following tenuous reasoning at best (particularly The Stranglers' Peaches - great tune though it is -, and the TV ad pair), the omission of New Order's World In Motion is truly shocking.

Overall

6

out of 10

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